We’ve all got it: the Tupperware shelf. This is perhaps one of the most annoying places I spend time at every day. And not a little time, a lot of time. The kid’s lunches go in square ones; the chocolate covered pineapples go in a small round one; yogurt in a bigger round one. There’s never the right lids to cover the ones I need.

Everyday I reach up and grab one, and they all come falling down. Blue and white lids drop behind the stove and bottoms bounce into the dirty dish water. I’ve tried putting these things on low shelves, high shelves, and the Lazy Susan. The Lazy Susan is a nightmar if one gets stuck and you can’t turn the thing or reach the lid to get it out. I do believe I screamed loud enough when this has happened to attract have people come running.

Then there’s the box of unwanted lids and tops and leaky plastic bears that dribble when drank out of. Why do I keep them? Because I might use them some day of course!

Saturday as I was rearranging my pantry and putting that “life junk” (you know paper plates, extra yarn, grocery bags, felt, the little sauce warmer with the candle under it that I never use…you know things like that away). My daughter wasn’t anywhere around so I started tossing bits and pieces of old games, dried out markers, and half used pieces of paper into a garbage bag. I placed it on top of the table just in case Coco would come in. Then my nanny saw it and said she wanted to go through it later - stuff her grandkids might use. She placed the garbage bag in the garage. Even when I try to throw things out, I can’t.

Eventually enough time will pass and I’ll toss those bears and lids. But in the meantime, when you’re Tupperware falls behind the stove or falls on your head and makes you say a few words you hope your children will never repeat, remember there is this odd little woman in Costa Rica suffering just like you. You are not alone. The feelings cross International boundaries and do not know language barriers. We all live in Tupperware hell.